Spannungsbogen
by Cinders and Brimstone
Summary: Epilogue to a war.


**AN- Sorry for leaving Grasp hanging, but I just didn't know what to do with it. Hadn't really intended to make it more than a two-shot, but I'll add to it probably now that the season's done and we have a Jarvey drought to weather. **

The world was off kilter and he wasn't sure exactly who was to blame.

Jessica, most likely. Every single thing she'd done lately was a spitball of acid to the eyes.

But then it was his fault too... _in a way_. Jackass goes staring into the sun, of course it's his fault if he goes blind. You can't blame the sun for being blisteringly hot and blinding. You can't blame the sun when it burns your skin off, for bringing your blood to a boil and evaporating your soul. The sun's just being the sun. The sun was always the sun; always would the sun. If the sun wasn't the sun, grass wouldn't grow, animals would starve, hamburgers and Steakhouse wouldn't exist.

The sun equals life. Without it…

God, he didn't even want to imagine that.

It was half an hour before she deigned to look up at him. A quick, dismissive look. Over him. Over the bag he'd set down at his feet, over the make shift barricade of strategically placed chairs, umbrellas and fancy-ass walking sticks.

Then she was back to her laptop, red bloody nails like talons on the keys.

Harvey waited for it. Watched her jaw clench with futile effort. Watched her bite her tongue to keep her face straight.

_Come on._

Not that he had any experience with prostitution whatsoever, but say one thing about Harvey Specter – say that he was an expert at selling himself. Marilyn Monroe with a dick.

_Come on. _

He deserved a second look. Gucci two-button mohair-and-cotton suit, Canali cotton shirt, Varvatos silk-and-wool tie, Cesare Paciotti crocodile loafers, steel Longines Column-Wheel chronograph and a $40 cotton pocket square by Paul Stuart. White, just in case he needed a flag to wave.

Fuck, the leather bag alone cost half a thou.

_Come on._

She sighed as she typed. Nothing. Nothing…

"That's the best you could come up with? Where'd you learn to barricade?"

"Your mama."

"You really don't want to start Yo Mama jokes with me… boy."

True. "Louis' mama, I meant to say. And I'm "Boy" now? Is that going to be a permanent thing?"

"I don't know," she paused, looked over what she'd written, then started backspacing, "It was a heat-of-the-moment kinda thing, but I'm thinking of keeping it... boy."

Harvey relaxed in the chair, undoing a button on his jacket. "It's a little bit derogatory, and I can think of at least a thousand better things for you to call me when you're momentarily in heat, but I guess when the cap fits I ought to wear it and I'm man enough to admit that my youthful exuberance and enthusiasm towards this firm and my place in it may have been borderline boyish."

And he got his second look. Only it was more of a scowl. No, not even that. Worse. Indifference.

"Ouch," he groaned. "Lucky for me, you still haven't had much progress with that 'If Looks Could Kill' project."

"Haven't had much time to work on it, lately," and she went right back into whatever she was typing up. "Been busy. You know how it is, when your name's on the door. Always busy, with this and that… You know. No wait, you don't. You have no sense of responsibility, work ethic, ethics in general–"

"Hold up now. I'm not here to point fingers or get fingers pointed at me."

"It's not worth my time to point a single finger at you, Harvey. In case you haven't noticed, I'm busy. With managing partner stuff. Adult stuff."

"Implying?"

Third look. Less indifferent this time. More mocking. He could deal with mocking.

"I'm not _implying _anything. I'm _stating_ a fact, Harvey. I'm busy. And being honest, I don't really want to look at you right now despite the fact that you've dialed up the swagger to eleven."

"One of us has to look like we own a shower and a mirror," he threw back. "But I guess Darby's the type to get off on day old sweat." Zing.

"Excuse me?"

Sunday, 2am, and she still hadn't left the office. He'd left. Mike had left. They'd all fucking left, except for her. Most likely she would have showered. Her diva ritual demanded she shower every four to six hours and redo the entire hair, make-up and wardrobe get-up. Vanity, he'd called it once. Marketing, she'd corected. Then she'd educated him in the differences between a five hundred dollar suit and a five thousand dollar suit. Taught him to read people by their haircuts and the amount of cleavage visible. Carried him for his first mani-pedi. Cute little store right down on forty-fifth next to Dasinga's Ritual Coffeehut... Owned by a 62 year old Cuban refugee with nine kids who took turns working the register…

Green cardigan, green pencil skirt that showed an amount of thigh other workplaces might deem inappropriate. And just the littlest gleam of sweat right there on her neck. Because of the cardigan. And the fact that they turned the AC off between 1 and 5 am…

She didn't look bad at all. But then she was Jessica Pearson. She could pull of sackcloth and ashes.

Ponytail... Swishing behind her like nobody's business.

He should back pedal. Take that comment back…

But he was Harvey Specter. Voted most likely to die horribly at the hands of a woman. "Not that you don't rock the shit out of the whole "I'm a slave for you" bit, but heels? Really? If you can't do pregnant you should at least have the decency to go barefoot. And some hot skillet grease up to your elbows wouldn't kill. Some smudges of soot to represent the kitchen, maybe? Master Darby seems the type to appreciate a show of effort to get things authentic, and we must do our best to please the British massa, mustn't we?"

She just stared. Then she smiled. "I don't even know what your problem is anymore. I mean, what was that about just now? So many allusions... You've never been shy about getting your say, so make like John Mayer and say what you want to say."

"He could be a Nazi. Have you considered that?"

"A British Nazi?"

"How do you know he's British? The accent? That shit could be fake. I cannot live under a Nazi regime, Jess. I'm one-eight Jewish. Louis is full-blown Jewish. Mike's from Canada - he could be Jewish, we don't know. You're going to sacrifice us? Are you going to be the one… to give the Nazis a foothold in the New World? All for a fistful of dollars?"

"Correction - we had a fistful of dollars before the Nazis. We're selling out to the Nazis for a few dollars more."

"I don't like him."

"Yeah well, right now I don't much like you. I'd shrug, but I don't want to waste the calories."

"What shit is that? Vampire Diaries? You watch that nonsense?"

"And I'm not alone, apparently." A pregnant pause filled the room while she stared at the computer screen, face tired. Eyes weary. "Who do you ship?"

"Delena. Why? Doesn't everyone."

She shook her head, ignoring him again.

Silence.

Oh the sound of silence. Horrible.

And not even a complete silence. He could hear her talons shredding into the keyboard. Clickety-click click. "So remember that time with Polly Potts–"

"Porter."

"Him. Remember when I kinda sorta threw you under the bus, _ish,_ and you got crushed but I visited you in the hospital and brought flowers and you instantly forgave me because you can't stay angry at this face for more than 24 hours? Is this going to be like that?"

She swiveled in her chair, eyes not even shifting towards him. "How many hours has it been?"

"Thirty-one."

"Well then I guess this time is different."

"Why?"

"Because when you throw me under a bus so you can peacock around, I don't actually mind. That's what happens when you take a peacock and train it to be an attack dog. Peacocks and road fatalities go hand in hand. This shit though, _this_ shit had nothing to do with your biological need to peacock. This was petulant, and poisonous and so mind-numbingly malicious…" And then he got it. _The Look_. "I don't want to be female and melodramatic, but I don't even know who you are anymore."

"I'm still Harvey."

"Really?" Her lips tightened. "Because I used to think that I knew every side to Harvey Specter that there was to know. Then you go Sith Lord on me. You're some toxic pit of… I know I kept harping on you extending your contract with us, but you know what, if you want to leave… I won't stop you. Take your records and your basketballs and just go. I'll even waive the non-compete."

"Jess–"

"It's probably best if you do leave, thinking about it rationally. There's obviously nothing more I can teach you. Our mentor-mentee days are definitively behind us. Why should you stay? Just because I helped you with Harvard? Hell, that was just good business. The firm's more than profited for it, but I don't own you. Maybe all of this is my fault. Keeping you on a leash when I should have set you off on your own. You'd do excellent out there, Harvey. I mean that."

"Jess–"

"You wanna go, I won't stop you. In fact, I'll help you." She pulled her laptop to her. "I'll even throw in a recommendation letter... cuz I'm benevolent like that."

"You're not benevolent! You're a bitch! And everybody here knows it."

"Well, how bouts we fuck the recommendation letter and I let you go with 50% severance instead."

"I'm trying to apologise here."

"Not necessary. But to prove I'm not all bitch, how about… 65% severance."

"You just attached yourself to Colonel Moneybags and 65% is the best you can do? Again, ouch."

"No, you want nothing to do with Colonel Moneybags, remember. I thought that would extend to his money as well. I'll pay your severance from my own personal accounts. So you can sleep easy at night."

"You can't let me go."

She smiled. That sick smile that she kept for Louis. The 'You're an asshole smile.' And yes, he could be an asshole from time to time, same way she became a raging hulk-bitch from time to time, but that was there _thing_. They were an asshole-bitch, one-two, rock 'em sock 'em combination. "You really aren't getting it, are you? I'm the boss. I'm the Head Bitch in Charge. Alpha and Omega. If I wanna let you go, I let you go. I can let you go quietly with your dignity or I can send you free-falling into the wonderful world of unemployment. That's my choice. Switching back to single ply last month – yeah, that was my choice. Saved money. Waiving your non-compete, my choice. The percentage of your severance package you receive, my choice. What to do with Donna when you're gone, my choice. Who to put in your office, my choice. What to do with your spastic, ungrateful, eidetic, retard girlfriend, my choice."

"_Mike_? Or Scotty."

"Is Scotty your girlfriend?"

The last time he called someone his girlfriend, he still had acne. "Mike?" His face twisted up in disgust as a series of images sailed through his head, most of them involving Mike with hair extensions in various stages of undress.

_Ugh_.

"You'd let me go?"

"In a heartbeat."

"It's been thirty-one hours."

"In a prolonged heartbeat."

"So all the 'You go, I go', that was just smoke up my ass?"

"You know what, let's do this." She closed the laptop. "I wanna know. What _exactly_ is up your ass, Harvey. Besides your head. Because I've done something epic here. I've saved this firm, same as you've done time and time again… The closest I'm getting to understanding what's going on with you is thinking back to my five year old niece. My sister, the kid's mother, caught absolute hell from the brat, the brat who didn't want mommy to get a new baby. The brat who promised to drown the new baby in the bathtub. Is it some kind of mommy issue? Some kind of psychiatric pathology you're working through? Not that I give much of a shit, but maybe you should get help."

"Fuck you, Jessica."

"Oh, we're on a nerve?"

"I'm not some fucking five year old girl."

"Well then, what are you? Because you've been bitching like a five year old. Throwing tantrums and all that. Threatening to drown the new baby."

"I'd be doing the world a favour."

"By baby-killing?"

"How the fuck is _Darby_ the baby in this allegorical anecdote? He's a grown sixty-something year old fat, short man."

"He's in his forties."

"You've seen his birth certificate? Dude looks at _least_ sixty-five."

"What does his age matter?"

"It's not _only _his age I have a problem with. A large portion of it has to do with his morbid obesity. And his lack of height. And his _face_."

"What's wrong with his face?"

"Have you _seen_ it? I mean we already have Louis to deal with. And Mike. People are going to get ideas if we keep collecting misfits and circus freaks."

"Says the guy in crocodile loafers."

Ouch.

"Fine. You want to cast me out into the wind, do it. I dare you."

"You _dare_ me? Boy–"

"Stop calling me that. I'm a grown man!"

"Act like it, then. Because all I'm seeing is a dressed-up, snot nosed–"

"Jess, you're on a power trip, and you're making decisions right now that I'm not sure you're thinking through. Hardman got you frizzled. He got under your feathers and he's making you think that you're under some kinda threat, but you're not. We dealt with Hardman. That's done. We won that. And it's your name up on that door. It says Pearson. And you don't want to make it Pearson Specter, you don't think I've earned it, you don't think I deserve it, you don't think I'm ready, you don't like my hair, fine. Fine. Don't put my name up if you don't want to, but don't add Darby's name because you think you have to. He's not offering anything we need. You can't just-" The words dried up in his mouth. He was Harvey Specter. He didn't do begging.

_Breathe._

_Keep your shit together._

"Well, don't stop now. Spit it out."

"Spannungsbogen."

Her face went blank for a moment as she tried and failed to place the word. "Refresh me."

"Dune."

He wasn't a sci-fi nerd. He'd never done a day of physics in his life. Neither geography. Neither Astrology. And just the bare minimum of Economics… Still that didn't mean that he couldn't appreciate the Frank Herbert masterpiece for the work of art it was.

"Dune?"

"Dune is to Star Wars what the Lord of the Rings is to… every fantasy novel, movie and card game in existence."

"Oh I know what Dune is... Boy." She blinked her eyes slowly, disinterest starting to set in again, "Fine. Spannungsbogen."

"It refers to the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing."

"Mhmm."

"Spannungsbogen – it only really works if at the end when you reach out to grasp the thing… the thing is still there. If the thing gives itself away to somebody else, you just kinda feel like an ass."

"The _thing_."

"Getting my name on the door. That was my _thing. _And you took it and gave it away to fucking Scotty and fucking Darby. How do you expect me to react to that? Shit like that will piss anybody off. You hit me below the fucking belt. But I'll admit that I maybe overreacted, and I'll go even further and apologise. So truce? Can we call a cease-fire?"

"Truce?" she laughed. And she called _him_ the Sith Lord? He could picture her, clear as day killing younglings and bathing in their blood. She was pure evil. Cruelty. Wickedness.

God. And what kind of sicko would it make him if he said he kinda got off on it? Just a little bit?

"This little mini-war between us – newsflash, jackass – I'm winning. I'm old and barren but I'm not senile. Not yet. I can still cut you down to size, chew you up and spit you out. I am Jessica fucking Pearson and I don't believe in truces! I don't take prisoners and I sure as hell and sunrise, don't go easy on mutiny."

"Jess–"

"Don't 'Jess' me."

"Some guy named Crabb said that if you think of humanity as one large body, then war is like suicide. At best, self-mutilation. I–"

"You've a problem with cutting, Harvey? Cause I've a razor blade I can spare. A bottle of wine to help you on your way. I need soldiers here. _Loyal_ soldiers. I don't need anybody else, but _soldiers_."

"You do realise you're quoting the power-hungry villain in Doom, right? The guy who was killing his own subordinates?"

"For insubordination."

"God dammit, Jess. You going to be a bitch about this forever?

"Hmm. Forever sounds appealing. Or at least until Monday morning. I think I'm a little bit entitled, don't you? A lot of attitudes in this place, about time I got one."

"Fine." He took out the forty dollar white flag folded up in his pocket. Waved it lethargically. "I surrender. There."

She wiped at her eyes. Tired eyes.

Tired because of him?

Worse, tired _of_ him?

He could joke about it from now until kingdom come, and it still wouldn't be funny. He'd done to many backflips to get where he was. He'd been Harvey specter since the day he met her. Everything before that was darkness. Everything after? It might be bright, but most likely it would only be a sort of false light. Like moonlight. Cold. Pale.

And he'd starve.

"God, don't cry about it. Fine Truce. Ceasefire. Whatever. But I'm busy really. Tomorrow's a big day and there's a lot of in house paperwork I need to get in order. Busy, busy, busy. Named partner stuff." She chuckled just a little bit. "Hurts, doesn't it? People yanking you around by the short hairs?"

"I don't have short hairs." He paused a moment for the imagery to sink in. "I wax."

She screwed up her face. "Figuratively, you mean?"

He shrugged. Just let himself go limp in the chair a little. Very comfortable chairs... "I can't share you. I can't share _this. _I don't have a lot of _this _in my life. Me and Mike have a _thing, _but it's not really a _thing_ thing. And Donna and me have a separate _thing _that's been years in the making–"

"The corkscrew and thumbtacks thing…"

"Can-opener. But that's not really a real thing. It's an imaginary thing that we both pretend is important and real. And me and Scotty, we're just a fuck-thing. Me and Zoe was a _weird_ thing. Me and my dad is mostly a pity thing and everything with my mom is a sorta slow-burn love-slash-hate thing. _This,_" he took a deep breath, and let it out… "_This _is my _thing_. My _thing_ thing. And I can't share it, because it's personal and private but largely because I don't want to fucking share it. Not with Scotty, Darby, Mike, Louis, Zane, Hardman, nobody. _This_ building. _This_ chair. My office. This is _my_ place. My niche. Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person."

"Oh, more Dune?"

He could help the smile from creeping over his face. He wasn't going to blush. There was absolutely nothing blushable about your boss watching Dune. But he couldn't help it."You've never watched a Dune movie in your life."

"I have too. And read the books."

"Well, let's go. New wager. You out-Dune me, I'll transform myself into the perfect right-hand man. I out-Dune _you–"_

"Not going to happen."

"I out-Dune you, and we go back to being us. Minus the bitching. And you call me Muad'Dib."

"Fine. Each person gets fifteen seconds to think. Go overtime and you lose. You go first- I'm benevolent like that."

"Fine," he settled into his seat, comfortable. Pulled the chronograph from his pocket. He always knew it would come in handy. "Go. 'M_uad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson._' From The Humanity of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan. Boom, in your face."

Her eyebrows went up.

_Ha._

Surely, she knew he had a God complex. Everyone in the building knew it. No need for surprise.

She shook her head. Mocking again. "'_I must rule with eye and claw — as __the__ hawk among lesser birds.' _Duke Leto Atreides, bitch."

"'_Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never persistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.'_ From Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan."

"Is your obsession with Maud'Dib even, or the Princess Irulan?"

"Um, which do you think? One is a nigh-omnipotent god-king-messiah. The other's an unmelting Ice Queen who goes her entire life married to a god-king without ever once getting the opportunity to fuck him. Can you even imagine how much she suffered? Day in, day out, so close and still so far. Hovering in and out of his orbit, like a barren moon... Princess Irulan is the saddest woman known to man. Empress of the world and all she really wanted was a good, hard-" he cut himself off. "Five seconds. 3, 2 -"

* * *

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose.

4.35 am.

He took a seat in Donna's unoccupied cubicle, listening on over the intercom to the beyond ridiculous mini-war going on. He'd got his ass chewed out. He'd got threatened with jail time. Harvey – no. Precious Baby Harvey gets off with a stern finger-wagging.

Fuckers.

_Fuck_ '_em_.

But they paid his salary… "Who's winning?"

Louis gave him a look. "I forget how completely new you are sometimes. Harvey. Duh. Have you never read or seen Dune?"

"A geek thing?"

"Star Wars is a geek thing. Star Trek is a geek thing. Dune is _High_ _Geek_. If Geek was a religion, Dune would be the bible."

"Like Scientology?"

"Tom Cruise wishes."

"Like Battlestar Gallactica?"

"Even higher, my sad ignorant friend."

"And they're into it?" He didn't have time for this shit. He had files that needed to be signed. By Harvey. And the fucking door was barricaded...

"All the novels centre around the trials and tortures of a man who becomes a god. Of course they're into it. They both fancy themselves as members of some covert pantheon."

It was Mike's turn now to give Louis a look. "You too?"

"Well, it's also about the economic struggles of an empire whose trade depends on one single resource that may or may not be renewable. I don't buy into the religion, but I like to consider myself one of the movers and shakers of the universe. Keeping the trade routes open for the mutant warp-speed pilots to jump across the sectors. Very thought provoking stuff. We deal mainly in magical spice. I like to consider myself one of the Bene Tleilax. Maybe their king-"

"Magic spice?"

"Like marijuana and Middle eastern oil combined. With the benefit of allowing you to get so high, your brain sees fucking time itself. Or some shit like that."

"So more like cocaine then."

Louis sneered. "I don't know, Mike, I don't do drugs."

"How long do you think they have again?"

"Oh, the last time they did this it went on for days, but Harvey's playing it cool this time. Has a good pattern going. Starting with the works of Princess Irulan was smart. Added some structure. And Jessica's all over the place. Bene Gesserit, Orange Catholic Bible, Fremen Proverbs… Harvey hasn't gone pass Chapterhouse while Jessica's dipping into the derivative works."

Right. "So that's what, half hour?"

"I'd like to say yes, except Harvey's never won a single one of these. The closest he came was the Tolkien War of 2005."

"Really? He's never won?"

"Not one that counts. There was the Nicholas Sparks Crusades, but nobody considers that…"

"TMI, Louis. I still have to work with the man."

"He won the Matrix 1 Battle, but he lost Matrix 2 and Matrix 3. So overall– You know what would be fun, if me and you did one. You have an eidetic memory, I'm super intelligent and I've seen every movie you've seen–"

"How do you know what movies I've seen?"

"Rotten Tomatoes. Flixter. And I've noticed that you haven't quite gotten around to seeing Les Mis as yet–"

"Because I don't want to." Mike's head hit the desk with a thud.

"Come on, it'll be fun. Plus I need a reason to where my good suits."

"Can you forge his signature?"

"I wonder why they're doing it at this hour? It doesn't make sense. There's no witnesses... Okay. I've some almonds and a bottles of Basquez '83 in my office."

"Shoot me. Please."

"I need to have a thing with someone."

"What?"

"A _thing!" _Louis stacked his pile of folders on top of Mike's files. "And my iPad. We can look up the lines. I have the books and the screenplays downloaded already. God dammit, I need a thing! I'm always the spectator. I need to start my own thing. What are Rachel's hobbies, do you know? Anything thing-able?"

**AN- I Just had this in my head. Inspired by Louis getting Nigel out-mudded by Nigel. Despite the downer-ending. Pearson-Darby might still be the most fun law firm to work at. And yeah, I have a Dune collection, but I don't use any of the quotes in real life except the Litany against fear. Lol. Hope it was fun.**

**Harvey is such a Maud'Dib, isn't he? And Jessica is... Just a Jessica. Not quite an Irulan, because she "wouldn't need a roofie", right? That shit's canon.**


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